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Month: December 2014

This is, at least in part, the reason for my current lack of blogging. November was an exceptionally difficult and stressful month, for me, but also, it seems, for almost everyone else. Personally, this has been a time of trying to love people better, trying to love some people less, trying to let some people go. It’s been a time of having to get really real with myself and my life and the ways I’ve let my mental health issues affect both, as well as other people. It’s been loss and regret and planning and packing and moving and meds and stress, and stress, and stress.

Politically, it’s been blow after blow, gut-punch after gut-punch. It’s been brutality and death and injustice, racism and ignorance and a shocking lack of empathy. It’s been don’t look at the news, don’t click the link, don’t read the comments. It’s been no emotional reserves left to deal with this world, but also the knowledge that that’s a luxury I don’t deserve to indulge, that to be an ally means opening my mouth, speaking up, engaging where others can’t and shouldn’t have to. And it’s been mourning that during a time meant for thanks, a mother has no son left to be thankful for, a woman is imprisoned for a crime she didn’t come close to committing, and a child’s life has been cruelly cut off before it even had a chance to begin.

These are the things I don’t like to blog about, because there’s already enough of them in the world, on the web. Everyone is sad, or sick, or stressed, or scared. Winter is coming and we’re all still sweet summer children. I want to write and share things that will make people feel a little warmer, a little lighter, a little happier. I want to focus on positivity so that when I’m in the depths of despair, as Anne would put it, I can look back at the good things and remind myself that they were, and are, and will be.

But sometimes, things are just hard, and heavy, and that’s all. Sometimes, you just have to sit with that heaviness and acknowledge it. Not bow to it, never that, but know that it’s there, that it’s real, and that, like all things, it’s temporary. Even if it’s recurring, it’s not forever. And then, even though it’s temporary, that it’s yours and it’s also many other people’s, and maybe it would help some of them to see it reflected back from someone else. To know that they’re not alone. Even though we know this, intellectually, we don’t always know it emotionally, and even though the news and social media never let us forget, sometimes we forget anyway.

So, you’re not alone. The world is heavy and I am heavy in the world, and if you are, too, I’m here with you. It will get better–even now, even in November, there were good, happy things–but that doesn’t make the ache less or the burden lighter, right here, right now. And that’s okay. It doesn’t have to be instantly better, you don’t have to sweep it away or hide it behind platitudes and positivity mantras. But you can share it, and let people hold your hand and love you through it.

I always want things to be easy, especially emotional things. I want them to be only good, and, when they aren’t, I want to ignore and rush past them to a point when they will be again, or to a point where there’s enough distance that I don’t have to care anymore. But that isn’t the way anything works, least of all emotions, and so many of the hard things in my life have been caused by these avoidant tendencies. I know that, and I’m working on it. I’m fortunate enough to have some wonderful people in my life who never stop loving me and never stop holding out their hands, even if I don’t always take them, and I’m so glad and so grateful and I hope you have that, too.

If you don’t (or even if you do), here is me loving you, here is me holding out my hand. Here is me saying I know it’s hard, I know it’s heavy. It is for me, too. But we can help get each other to better. After winter comes spring, but winter is still to be endured, and what better form of warmth?